Town Square

Seven injured in multi-vehicle crash in Palo Alto

Original post made
on May 17, 2012

A traffic collision involving an Airport shuttle van and three other vehicles in Palo Alto late Wednesday night sent seven people to the hospital, one with serious injuries, according to the California Highway Patrol and the Palo Alto Fire Department.

Posted by inevitable
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on May 17, 2012 at 10:32 am

I'm not surprised. The combination of a concrete barrier along the shoulder and the narrowing of the road due to construction, with insufficient warning, simply looked like an accident waiting to happen. I was driving home at 11pm last night - I was southbound on 101 and got off at San Antonio Rd. It was really not clear what was coming up approaching the construction area.

The more likely place for an accident, though, is the merge onto southbound 101 from Oregon/Embarcadero. It's a short merge and no shoulder - if cars don't let you merge, there's no place to go. No one is paying any attention to the new 55mph speed limit.

Posted by Cur Mudgeon
a resident of Greenmeadow
on May 17, 2012 at 10:39 am

I was SB on 101 at University early on Wednesday morning, returning from SFO. Another driver entered the freeway there and cut in front of me (I was at freeway speed) and proceeded to drive at about 75-80 to the Oregon exit. Then a large utility type truck entered the freeway, traveling about 70, and exiting on San Antonio!
Where is the enforcement? Aren't fines doubled in construction areas?

Posted by neighbor
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on May 17, 2012 at 10:54 am

Yeah, I think there needs to be a way to make everyone passing through slow down in this region.
I was southbound on 101 yesterday from Palo Alto and exiting onto Hwy 85 and was suprised as the lanes were suddenly extremely hard to discern and confusing. Colors of pavement vs. the temporary lane marks. Drivers will have to slow down and look carefully to see the lanes. I expect they will keep rejiggering them and this will contribute to surprises.

While I sympathize with you, the law is that the merging driver *must* yield the right of way to those on the highway. The vehicle on the road being merged into *always* has the right of way. This puts the onus on the merging driver to not put herself or himself in the position where there is "no place to go. . ." The merging driver will always be at fault in this situation, if they cause an accident while merging.

Unfortunately, 101 has many short merges. But that doesn't relieve the merging driver of their responsibility.

I am wondering what company it was on the airport shuttle van. If it is SuperShuttle, I have good experiences with them here, but less then good on the east coast on the airport pickup, including dangerous driving and unnecessary out of the way driving when they could have easily dropped off as much as an hour earlier.

I am also concerned with the high degree of tailgaters there are here in general which increase the likelihood of accidents.
I don't understand the need to be right behind me when I'm sitting at a red light! This needs to be addressed more aggressively by the traffic control police.

Posted by stretch
a resident of another community
on May 17, 2012 at 2:15 pm

One of the reasons that I moved out of the Bay Area and still don't like to drive there is that there are too many people on the road, they all seem to be in a hurry, and they don't seem to care how closely they follow me and whether they could stop if I had to stop quickly. In this case, it sounds like the driver of the car behind the van just wasn't paying attention and didn't slow down as the van did. On the phone? Oblivious? Who knows......Way too many people going too fast, talking on the phone, eating, ten feet behing the car in front of them, believing that the law doesn't apply to them.

@Neighbor: Thanks for the Web Link about the reason for the construction. I was late for a very important appointment because it took me 20 minutes creeping along on Oregon to actually get onto 101 on May 10. I didn't really know what was going on!

Suzanne,
So sorry to learn of this accident. The area of 101 is now extremely dangerous, given the now unsafe access ramps and unclear lane striping. this is the worst condition of 101 I've seen in 40 years here.

Posted by Choice
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on May 18, 2012 at 10:09 pm

Cur Mudgeon might I remind you that the speed posted before construction was at 65. So why were you driving in the right lane at 75-80 when the right lane is for slower vehicles and used of entering and exiting the freeway?
The current speed is 55 due to the construction.
Please I beg you.... Don't drive above posted limit for everyone's safety.

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